California signs seven laws making data centres carry their grid costs
Newsom approved bills directing the CPUC to examine data centre energy use, requiring payment of infrastructure upgrade costs and removing blanket environmental exemptions.
Policy
ACER approves changes to the PICASSO and MARI balancing frameworks
Decisions 12/2026 and 13/2026 accept TSO proposals to harmonise balancing service provider prequalification and to set a common amendment process for both platforms.
The US Energy Department puts $99 million into 21 geothermal projects
The funding backs next-generation geothermal technologies and resource exploration — a grant programme aimed at making the heat-under-everywhere resource dispatchable at scale.
Finland would sort grid connection requests into four priority groups
A draft amendment to the Electricity Market Act puts consumption sites and storage into ranked groups where capacity is scarce; comments close on 9 October, entry into force set for 1 January 2027.
Austria and Slovenia keep their one-way gas link until 2029
EU rules require gas to flow both ways at every cross-border point. ACER agrees the market gives no signal to build it at Murfeld.
ACER tells Ireland to reclassify the Corrib Linkline before December
The tariff methodology passes on cost-reflectivity and non-discrimination. Two things do not: how one pipeline is classified, and forecasts built on a 2024 plan.
ACER faults Portugal's adequacy study over its assumptions
Europe's assessment finds no problem in Portugal. The national one finds a shortfall growing fiftyfold by 2035. ACER's opinion is about the modelling, not the lights.